Dozens of A.I.-related regulations enacted in the past two years now lead to fines, incarceration and legal challenges from the likes of Elon Musk.
Pennsylvania’s attorney general recently accused a police officer of taking photos in a women’s locker room, secretly filming people while on duty and possessing a stolen handgun. But he was unable to bring charges related to a cache of photos found on the officer’s work computer featuring lurid images of minors created by artificial intelligence. When the computer was seized, in November, creating digital fakes was not yet considered a crime.
Since then, a statewide ban on such content has taken effect. While it came too late to apply to the police officer’s case, the state’s attorney general, Dave Sunday, has already used the law to charge another man who was accused of having 29 files of A.I.-generated child sexual abuse material in his home.
Over the past two years, American legislators have grown increasingly alarmed by the threat of malicious deepfakes. Sexual images of middle school students have been digitally faked without their permission. Vice President JD Vance disavowed an almost certainly inauthentic clip that mimicked his voice to criticize Elon Musk. An ad featuring an A.I.-generated version of the actress Jamie Lee Curtis was removed from Instagram only after she posted a public complaint.
Legislators are responding. Already this year, 26 laws governing various kinds of deepfakes have been enacted, following 80 in 2024 and 15 in 2023, according to the political database Ballotpedia. This month in Tennessee, sharing deepfake sexual images without permission became a felony that carries up to 15 years of prison time and as much as $10,000 in fines. Iowa enacted two bills related to sexually explicit deepfakes last year, one of which established sexual images of children generated by A.I. as a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,245 fine for the first offense. In New Jersey, a recently approved ban on malicious deepfakes could result in a fine of up to $30,000 and prison time.
California has been especially aggressive in reacting to deepfakes, passing eight related bills in September alone, including five on a single day.